REVIEW

Lapis x Labyrinth Review

by Jake Stewart, September 20th, 2019

Lapis x Labyrinth on the surface is an overwhelming and somewhat repetitive experience, but if you allow yourself to dig a little deeper you’ll find an incredibly satisfying gameplay loop filled to the brim with cute designs, vibrant visuals, and an interesting dungeon-crawling system. However, for those looking for a deep story with interesting characters, you couldn’t be farther off the mark. Lapis x Labyrinth is for a specific type of mood for a specific type of game, and it does it well.

The best comparison I could possibly create for this game would be a 2D dungeon-crawling Musou game. If you’re unacquainted with the term, think Dynasty Warriors, or Hyrule Warriors. You take control of a party of adorable chibi adventurers, questing for treasure to support a failing town. With a cast of typical RPG classes to choose from, like Warrior, Preist, Mage types there are plenty of different options to spice up your group.

The gimmick of the game is that your party is stacked on top of one another, creating a tower of chibi fighters that shouldn’t be messed with. The character on the very bottom is your current fighter, and the others stay stacked on top to be easily cycled out when you’re ready for a new fighter to take their place.

The story is practically non-existent beyond the fact that your party is looking to beat up some monsters, find some treasure and improve their old run-down town. The main playtime will be inside a series of different short dungeons, where you’ll navigate some simple mazes with very light platforming, until you reach a boss at the end, rinse and repeat. Once you make it back to the town, you can recruit new fighters or upgrade your current ones with new equipment. As you collect more treasure, more and more shops will flow into the town and offer more options for what can be purchased with your hard-earned gems.

Combat is relatively simple but every attack feels weighty enough to make it satisfying. Every impact from an arrow or a sword is accented in a flurry of special effects that make it feel like you’re doing much more damage than you likely actually are. However, it can be somewhat easy to lose track of yourself or what you’re doing within the mass of special effects, hundreds of enemies throwing themselves at you, and all the treasure hitting the screen.

The simple combat accents this well enough, as it’s little more than a button masher with a couple of meters to get some fancy abilities to steal the show for a moment. For example, once you’ve dealt enough damage, the Extra Order meter will slowly fill up and allow for a devastating team attack. Depending on the units in your team, they will all react differently, but your current character can continue attacking while the support characters on top start dashing around and joining the fight, or healing each other.

The bosses are all a nice touch and add something to look forward to at the end of the dungeon. The designs can be a bit unique, and offer something more of a challenge compared to stereotypical fantasy monsters that die in one or two hits that litter the dungeons. With more unique moves and much more health, they feel like a nice wrap-up after the dungeon crawl.

The main draw for this game is somewhat superficial, but remain incredibly satisfying. There’s something therapeutic to smashing through waves of enemies while colorful treasure splashes rapidly across the screen, massive numbers racking up as you deal damage, and a cheerful catchy tune to polish it off. I wouldn’t say that you’d want to sit down and play Lapis x Labyrinth in a sitting or binge this game by any means, but for a quick hour or two every now and again, it’s incredibly satisfying to romp through these simple dungeons.

My copy was on the Nintendo Switch and I can’t imagine a better place for this game. It runs perfectly fine despite the crazy hectic visuals and the short dungeons with very little time requirements make for perfect distractions on breaks. With many first-party massive games to eat my time, I still find myself going back to the simple colorful world of Lapis x Labyrinth from time to time and always having a blast.